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Battleground Europe

AISNE 1914

Jerry Murland

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First World War Series Editor Nigel Cave

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First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Pen & Sword Military an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd 47 Church Street Barnsley South Yorkshire S70 2AS Copyright Š Jerry Murland 2013 ISBN 9781781591895 The right of Jerry Murland to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in 10pt Times Printed and bound in England by CPI UK Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Wharncliffe Local History, Pen and Sword Select, Pen and Sword Military Classics, Leo Cooper, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing. .

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

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CONTENTS Introduction by the Series Editor ..........................................................

Acknowledgements .............................................................................................

Author’s Introduction ........................................................................................

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight

6 7 9

The German Army on the Chemin des Dames................ 23 The 4th Division ................................................................................................. 29 The 5th Division ................................................................................................. 41 The 3rd Division ................................................................................................ 55 The 2nd Division ............................................................................................... 73 The 1st Division ................................................................................................. 91 Stalemate and the 6th Division ....................................................... 109 The Tours Using the Guide and Advice to Visitors ................................. 133 Car Tour 1 – The left Flank ................................................................. 138 Car Tour 2 – The Right Flank ........................................................... 148 Walk/Bike Route 1 – La Montagne Farm ............................. 171 Walk/Bike Route 2 – Rouge Maison Farm........................... 177 Walk Route 3 – Old Cerny Village............................................... 181 Walk/Bike Route 4 – Chemin des Dames and Paissy.............................................. 184 Appendices.................................................................................................................. 189 Bibliography............................................................................................................... 202 Index................................................................................................................................... 205

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INTRODUCTION THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE AISNE as defined by the Battles Nomenclature Committee began on 13 September 1914 and concluded two days later on 15 September. By nightfall on 15 September the front lines of the opposing forces had become more or less established; although the fighting had not stopped at that point, neither side made any further gains. However, as the stalemate situation gradually became established, the two sides did begin to dig in and resort to a war of intense shelling and local attacks – a situation that would become only too familiar over the next three years. Trench warfare had arrived.

Although British involvement in 1914 was a brief one compared to their French allies who fought in the valley for nearly four years, it remains a significant chapter in the history of the regular army of ‘Old Contemptibles’ that first went to war in August 1914. That said, the visitor to the Aisne valley and the Chemin des Dames cannot help but be reminded of the French occupation of the area and in particular the offensives that took place in 1917. For the Frenchman, the Chemin des Dames is almost as hallowed as Verdun and, as such, battlefield visitors will constantly be reminded of this by the legion of monuments and sites closely associated with that period of French military history.

While the main events of the British campaign are recounted in this guide, a lack of space has made it impossible to include the actions of every British unit and battalion that took part in the fighting. The reader wishing for a wider appreciation of the campaign will find that the author’s Battle on the Aisne 1914 – the BEF and the Birth of the Western Front offers a more complete account and analysis of the battle.

For the British, the First Battle of the Aisne occurred a mere seven weeks after war had been declared on 4 August 1914 and much of those initial weeks had been spent on the roads of Belgium and France, either in retreat or – after 5 September – advancing towards Sir John French, commanderthe Aisne. in-chief of British forces in After the official declaration of war on 4 1914.

August, four infantry divisions and one cavalry division of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under the 9

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General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, commanding II Corps on the Aisne.

Lieutenant General Sir Douglas Haig, commanding I Corps on the Aisne.

overall command of Sir John French, began its embarkation for France on 11 August, completing the task just nine days later. By 22 August – the eve of the Battle of Mons – the BEF was assembled in Belgium and in position on the left of the French Fifth Army. General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien’s II Corps lined the canal between Mons and Condé facing north while Lieutenant General Sir Douglas Haig’s I Corps was posted along the Beaumont–Mons road facing northeast. To the west Major General Edmund Allenby’s cavalry and units of 19 Brigade guarded the canal crossings as far as Condé. The battle along the canal at Mons on 23 August was the first major clash the BEF had with the German First Army commanded

by General Alexander von Kluck, and the outcome was inevitable. Outnumbered and out-manoeuvred and with General Charles Lanrezac’s French Fifth Army already retiring on his right flank, Sir John French had little recourse but to retire. It was a retirement that took the BEF General Alexander von Kluck, commanding the south of the Marne and first drew attention to Sir German First Army.

John’s shortcomings as a commander-in chief.

The retreat from Mons, although considered to be a splendid feat of arms, was an episode the BEF emerged from by the skin of its teeth. It was not handled well by the staff at General Headquarters (GHQ), which was often conspicuous by its absence and notorious for the ambiguity of its operational orders. While there were numerous rearguard actions fought by the men of both Douglas Haig’s I Corps and Smith-Dorrien’s II Corps, it was II Corps that bore the brunt of the fighting at Mons and Le Cateau. Even so, during the Battle of the Marne and up until the Aisne valley was reached on 12 September, all units of the BEF were involved to some extent in 10

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fighting a series of seemingly unconnected and often frustrating engagements with German rearguard units. Such was the nature of the BEF’s involvement in the Battle of the Marne that many in the BEF had no idea of the wider strategic picture. As Captain John Darling of the 20th Hussars (20/Hussars) remarked afterwards, ‘it seemed curious to note that we never heard of this battle until it was over’.

To the eternal credit of the British soldier, the end of the retreat and the subsequent advance back over the Marne was seen as an opportunity to hit back at the enemy; tired and footsore they turned to pursue what they understood to be a thoroughly demoralized German army. Events on the Marne had seen a substantial gap open up between von Kluck’s left wing and the right wing of von Bülow’s Second Army and it was through this widening gap that the BEF was advancing towards the Aisne.

To the frustration of many, even after it became obvious that the German army was in full retreat, British staff officers – largely through their inexperience – handled the logistics of the advance badly. From GHQ there was little direction given to fighting units in the daily operational orders and even within divisions, staff officers failed to deliver effective movement orders or even prevent instances of friendly fire as divisional boundaries became blurred in the move north. The end result was predictable; General Klaus von the German army escaped and proceeded to Bülow, commanding withdraw in a relatively orderly fashion to the the German Second Aisne while the BEF struggled to pursue them in Army. the torrential rain that made marching a purgatory in itself. But even as late as the morning of 13 September, as German troops reassembled on the Chemin des Dames, the gap between their First and Second Armies still existed between the eastern village of Berry au Bac and Ostel in the west.

In those early weeks of the war the BEF was fighting very closely alongside its French allies and, given the size of the British force, it was a very minor player in the wider strategic picture that was unfolding across France and Belgium. To place the role of the BEF in perspective, by the time the British arrived on the Aisne the battle line stretched some 150 miles from Noyon in the west to Verdun in the east and it was only along a tiny fifteen mile sector in the middle that the British were engaged. (See Map 2) 11

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But as British units became engaged all along the Aisne front, so the casualties mounted. Expecting to continue their pursuit of a retiring enemy, the British encountered a strongly held German line of defence.

German shell fire proved to be remarkably accurate and powerful and it was some time before the British gunners could begin to mount an effective reply. The Aisne was certainly the beginning of the ascendancy of artillery as the major weapon of warfare but initially on the British side it was simply not up to the job in hand. Handicapped by the geography of the Aisne valley, British artillery was unable to provide the infantry with the firepower it required to take the Chemin des Dames or indeed fully support infantry attacks elsewhere along the valley. But with the advent of aerial observation carried out

by RFC pilots and the arrival of four batteries of rather ancient 6-inch howitzers of Boer War vintage, the balance began to swing more in favour of the British. The work of Lieutenants Lewis and James in developing the use of wireless transmissions from the air to artillery batteries on the ground was the start of a partnership that continued to develop through the war.

The lack of support from the guns of the artillery had profound effects on the infantry advance, particularly the units that had been engaged at Mons and Le Cateau. At Vailly, for example, the 3rd Division attack was doomed to failure as the much depleted battalions of Hubert Lieutenant Baron Hamilton’s division attempted to storm the heights of the Trevenen James, 4 Jouy spur. 8 Brigade, who had fought so doggedly at Mons Squadron RFC. on 23 August in the Nimy salient, had not a single machine Lieutenant Donald gun between them on 14 September and had to rely solely Swain Lewis, 4 on rifle fire. Similarly, on the Chivres spur, although the 5th Squadron RFC Division were still in possession of some of their machine guns, they had left a significant proportion of their artillery behind at Le Cateau. On the right flank I Corps experienced similar difficulties as their advance ground to a halt on the Chemin des Dames.

In spite of these shortcomings the crossing of the Aisne River itself was a triumph for the men of the Royal Engineers, a feat of arms that is not often given due credit.

The bridges the sappers constructed – often under fire from enemy infantry and artillery batteries – were indeed ‘bridges over troubled waters’, particularly as the river itself was swollen with rain and considerably higher than its usual September level.

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British troops passing over a temporary bridge on the Marne built by 9/Field Company. It was bridges such as this one that were built over the Aisne.

It is a fitting tribute to the bravery and tenacity of the Sappers that one of their number, Captain William Johnston of 59/Field Company, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry on the river.

For the British the prospects of breaking through and taking the Chemin des Dames was never greater than on the morning of 13 September. Thanks to the Royal Engineers and the initiative of some brigade and battalion commanders, the passage of the Aisne had been achieved on both flanks and intelligence passed to Douglas Haig still indicated that the gap between von Kluck and von Bülow was The château at La Fère-en-Tardenois used by Sir John French during the Aisne campaign. GHQ was situated some twenty miles from the Aisne, close to the RFC aerodrome at Saponay.

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vulnerable. The opportunity was lost owing to the failure of GHQ to fully appreciate the situation ahead of them, a situation which by the evening of 13 September had completely changed. German reinforcements were known to have arrived and were entrenching on the Chemin des Dames, yet there was no further directive from GHQ other than to continue the pursuit. As a result divisions blundered into the battle piecemeal and without adequate artillery support and out of their failure grew the trench lines of the Western Front.

Despite the lack of progress and the hoped for continuation of the advance, the BEF and its allies did frustrate any intentions the Germans may have had in launching a new offensive from the Aisne in 1914 and precipitated the so-called ‘race to the sea’ as each opposing side attempted to outflank the other. Despite the superiority of German fire power, the BEF were steadfast in defence and were an even match for the German infantryman, but there is no doubt that the Battle of the Aisne in 1914 was an opportunity missed for both the British and the French.

The Chemin des Dames and the Aisne Valley The Chemin des Dames ridge forms a narrow hog’s back feature between the Aisne and Ailette river valleys. Running along the crest is the D18 that links the N2 in the west to the D1044 in the east, a distance of some nineteen miles.

As to who the ‘dames’ of the Chemin des Dames actually were is still the subject of debate amongst historians. Prevailing opinion suggest the ladies were Victoire and Adelaide, the daughters of Louis XV, who used the road to visit Madame Françoise de Châlus, a former mistress of their father who lived at the Château de Boves, near Vauclair, on the far side of the Ailette. It appears that in 1780 the road along the ridge was paved over in order to make the passage of The Chemin des Dames. their carriage a little easier.

Remains of the original sandstone blocks can still be seen near Bouconville. However, some historians have suggested that the road that ran along the ridge may have taken its name from the ‘Dames de Proisy’ who, like Joan of Arc, accompanied Charles VII on his pilgrimage to 14

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the Priory of Saint-Marcoul de Corbeny the day after his consecration as King of France in 1429.

Early battles Whatever the origins of its name, the Chemin des Dames is steeped in the history of conflict. As early as 57 BC Julius Caesar fought the Gaulois on the Chemin des Dames near Berry-au-Bac, where it is said over 100,000 Gaulois fought the legions of Rome in a battle that resulted in Julius Caesar’s first victory in his campaign to defeat the Belgic alliance of tribes. The strategic importance of the ridge was underlined in 1814 when Napoleon Bonaparte fought the Battle of Craonne on the Chemin des Dames on his way to confront the Prussian General Gebhard von Blücher. Following his disastrous retreat from Moscow and defeat in Central Europe, Napoleon’s Grand Army had still not fully recovered from the huge losses sustained in almost continuous campaigning. Taking advantage of a weakened French army, a strong Prussian-led coalition army under Blücher advanced towards Paris, reaching Soissons on 4 March. Napoleon gathered his army, comprising of largely inexperienced recruits – dubbed ‘MarieLouise’ after Napoleon’s second wife, because so The statue of Napoleon many of them were too young to grow beards, and Bonaparte on the Chemin marched to meet the threat. des Dames.

At daybreak Napoleon found himself confronting the 24,000 troops led by the Russian General Woronzov. Much of the fighting centred around Hurtebise Farm, one of the key positions on the hillside, situated at the junction with the D886, east of the Musée de la Caverne du Dragon. The farm changed hands several times during the battle and was the scene of some desperate fighting led by the indomitable Marshal Ney. Despite the freezing temperatures the young inexperienced recruits still managed to climb onto the ridge in the face of the Russian guns only to be cut down in their hundreds. With the battle in the balance the day was saved by the arrival of the Garde in the early afternoon and the French managed to push the Russian and Prussian army back to the Soissons road, with both sides claiming a victory. Napoleon spent that night at Braye-en-Laonnois in the very house that von Blücher had occupied the previous evening. A 15

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French victory it may have been but it was only a prelude to the Battle of Laon, which two days later resulted in a defeat and the beginning of the end for Napoleon and the First Empire. Today the last battlefield victory that Napoleon would preside over is marked by a statue of the Emperor on a small mound on the south side of the road between Hurtebise and Craonne, a point from which he observed the battle.

Hurtebise Farm still has two cannon balls decorating the gateposts and the monument to the young French infantrymen is close to the car park of the Musée de la Caverne du Dragon. At Pontavert is a half buried Russian cannon used in the battle and which can be seen at the corner of Rue Neuve SaintMedard and Grand Rue. The Great War During the Great War there were three battles on the Aisne and the focus on each occasion was once again the Chemin des Dames ridge. The 1914 Battle of the Aisne came about as a direct result of the German retirement from the Battle of the Marne, which took General Robert place further south as the huge conscript armies of Nivelle.

France and Germany jostled for position almost within sight of Paris. In September and October 1914 the German army held onto its positions along the Chemin des Dames and although the French gained some ground during the Nivelle Offensive of April 1917 the French lost heavily in both casualties and morale. In the first week’s fighting alone the French army suffered 96,000 casualties, of whom over 15,000 were killed.

It was the failure of the Nivelle offensive which precipitated widespread mutinies and acts of disobedience amongst units of the French army over the summer of 1917 and saw General Philippe Pétain – the hero of Verdun – replacing the disgraced Nivelle as commander-in-chief.

It was not until October 1917 – under Pétain’s leadership – that the Chemin des Dames ridge west General Henri Philippe of Cerny was taken in the Battle of La Malmaison.

Pétain.

On 31 October 1917 the Germans abandoned their positions on the Chemin des Dames to fall back on a new line of defence north of the river Ailette.

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By early 1918 the first men of the American Expeditionary Force had arrived in the form of twelve battalions of the 26th Division and were brigaded with French troops in a mentoring role. Spread across a front of thirty kilometres they held the front line between the ruined towns of Chavignon and Pinon with their reserves based in the St. Blaise Quarry at Nanteuil and the Froidmont quarries west of Brayeen-Laonois.

However, any territorial gains made by the French in 1917 were short-lived when their efforts were reversed in the German BlücherYorck Spring Offensive that began on 27 May 1918, when many of the British regiments that had struggled on the Chemin des Dames in 1914 were represented again by the legions of fresh faced youngsters in the ranks of IX Corps. On this occasion the British were further east, between Bermicourt and Bouconville, northwest of Reims, and under the command of the French Sixth Army. The French and British were dramatically pushed back to the Marne before the German offensive finally ran out of steam in early June.

The Second World War Fighting returned to the Chemin des Dames in late May and June 1940 when another German army assaulted French positions along the Aisne.

With the BEF now evacuating the French mainland at Dunkirk and other Channel ports, General Maxime Weygand pinned his hopes for a last-ditch resistance of the German Blitzkrieg on a defensive line that ran from the channel coast along the line of the Somme and Aisne rivers to join the Maginot Line at Montmédy – the so-called Weygand Line.

But Weygand’s defences lacked depth and broke almost immediately; his forces, outnumbered and outgunned, fought in some instances to the last man, inflicting some crippling tank losses on the advancing German armoured divisions. But the end was in sight.

On 9 June von Rundstedt’s Army Group A German Panzers crossing attacked along the Aisne with four armoured the Aisne in June 1940. and two motorized infantry divisions and despite the gallant stand made by the French 14th Division, under the command of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, smashed through the French forces and headed for Paris. The fall of France had taken just six weeks. The battlefield visitor will find numerous memorials to the French troops involved in the 1940 fighting along the length of the 17

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Chemin des Dames, such as the plaque on the wall at Hurtebise Farm commemorating the passage of the 4th Armoured Division, commanded by de Gaulle, and the memorial to the 99th Regiment of Alpine Infantry above Brayeen-Laonnois.

The final battle to be played out on the Chemin des Dames came in 1944 with the advance of allied forces after the landings in Normandy; many of the Germans who fell during this time are buried at the German cemetery at La Malmaison on the western end of the D18.

To this day some French historians feel that the sombre The German cemetery at Malmaison.

German cemetery marks a symbolic but ultimate occupation of the Chemin des Dames by a German army. The remains of the old fortress of Malmaison lie directly behind the cemetery.

The Aisne Valley The geography of the Aisne river valley is characterized by a wide flat bottomed valley enclosed on both sides by high ground. The northern rim – the Chemin des Dames – rises to 199 metres at the Ferme de

An exaggerated cross section across the Ailette and Aisne valleys from Martigny-Courpierre to Cerny-en-Laonnois on the Chemin des Dames and across to Viel-Arcy on the southern heights above Pont-Arcy, a distance of just over eight miles. The wide river valley of the Aisne is completely overlooked by the Chemin des Dames. In 1914 the BEF were faced with having to cross the river and scale the northern spurs to reach the German positions on the Chemin des Dames.

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Poteau d’Ailles, while the southern heights are on average some fifty metres lower.

The cross-section makes it quite clear why the Chemin des Dames occupied such an important strategic position and just why the BEF were immediately caught on the back-foot when it was realized that the Germans had decided to stand and fight. Thus, when Major John Mowbray, the Brigade Major of the 2nd Divisional Artillery, reached the Aisne valley with the BEF in September 1914 he and many others had no illusions about the difficulties the British faced if the Germans were to hold onto the Chemin des Dames. He recorded his first impressions after crossing the Aisne at Bourg-et-Comin: The country on both sides of the river between Soissons and Craonne consists of high ground some 250 – 300 feet [sic] above the valley bottom. The direction of the Aisne is east to west – the main valley being about one mile in width. The valley bottoms are partly wooded and the slopes are almost entirely wooded with dense copses in which progress is difficult. One notable feature is a layer of limestone running at a height of about 200 feet above the valley which had been drawn upon for building stone resulting in numerous quarries and natural caves. The Aisne is about the size of the Thames at Oxford and unfordable. A feature is the canal running along the valley with a branch to the Oise at Bourg, passing the ridge north of the Aisne through a tunnel. The canal is also an unfordable obstacle. The watershed between the valley and the country further north is a continuous ridge of about 300 feet [sic] above the valley stretching from Soissons to Craonne along which runs the Chemin de Dames. From this ridge the plateau extends down in fingers.

The fingers that John Mowbray referred to in his account are a series of spurs projecting south towards the river from the Chemin des Dames ridge. In the British sector nine spurs of varying size created ridges of high ground that led down towards the river and, as Mowbray’s professional eye was quick to realize, it was these rounded spurs and reentrants that dominated the fifteen mile long British front that were the key to gaining the Chemin des Dames ridge in 1914. His diary betrays his concerns as to the difficulties this valley would pose should the Germans decide to make a stand on the northern heights along the Chemin des Dames. In estimating the distance between the two ridges on either side of the valley as about six miles, he recognized that, ‘any point in the valley can be observed from the Chemin de Dames ridge, as can most of the spurs and valleys and be very exposed to artillery 19

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fire. The whole position on the river lends itself to artillery fire from the northern side’. Not only that, but he correctly weighed up the difficulties infantry and artillery would have advancing up the numerous spurs and side valleys, ‘all of these positions’, he felt, ‘were exposed to cross fire and are tenable only with great difficulty’.

As also noted by John Mowbray, a feature of the valley is the layer of limestone that manifests itself in numerous caves and quarries.

Although the area abounds with examples of these creuttes, only one – the Musée de la Caverne du Dragon – is officially open to the public.

Over the centuries these creuttes have not only been used as a source of building material but in time of war they have been used by the population as refuge for themselves and their livestock. Many of the

The Cys-la-Commune railway station before the war.

The disused railway station at Pont-Arcy on the D925.

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caves were used during the Great War by troops on both sides as shelter from shellfire and the weather and those at Paissy and Pargnan in particular feature amongst British accounts of the fighting in September and October 1914.

In 1914 a narrow gauge railway line ran north of the river from Soissons in the west to a point east of Vailly where it crossed the river and continued on the southern bank towards Rheims. A spur continued along the north bank towards Guigincourt and today there are still scattered relics of the railway to be seen, including the former station building at Pont-Arcy, which has been converted into a private house.

The destruction of the Aisne communities over the course of the Great War was almost total and the railway, along with its infrastructure, was completely destroyed. So great was the devastation that six village communities situated on or close to the Chemin des Dames were not rebuilt. These communities were so badly damaged that the decision was taken in September 1923 not to reconstruct them; and numbered amongst these were Ailles, Beaulne-et-Chivy, Courtecon and Vendresse-et-Troyon. However, their names do live on today in the names of communes to which they were attached, thus we have PancyCourtecon, Chermizy-Ailles, Vendresse-Beaulne and Moussy-Verneuil as a permanent reminder of the past.

The British Front Line in 1914 There were no trench maps produced by the British for the 1914 Aisne campaign and the precise location of the British front line can only be gleaned from the various battalion war diaries and the Official History.

It is worth noting that some locations can be approximately pinpointed from early French trench maps produced after they took over the British sector in October 1914. Looking from left to right, the British front line began on the right of the French Sixth Army, with III Corps sector running from Point 151, just west of Bucy-le-Long to La Montagne Farm, where it continued southeast, running just south of Chivres to include the Missy bridgehead held by units of II Corps. Between Missy and the Vailly-sur-Aisne salient – a gap of just over three miles – was the German held Chivres spur, which extended down to the bridge at Condé-sur-Aisne and included the village of Celles-sur-Aisne. I Corps’ sector ran from the eastern edge of the Vailly salient northeast to Cour de Soupir Farm, where it crossed the Braye valley, then traversed the southern end of the Beaulne spur from where it continued northeast – just south of Chivy – to Mont Faucon. Here the line passed south of the Sucrerie at Cerny-en-Laonnois before holding the edge of the Chemin des Dames to a point close to the Poteau d’Ailles crossroads where it 21

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joined the left of the French Fifth Army. On the river itself, between Vénizel and Bourg, there were a total of seven road bridges, an aqueduct carrying the Oise-Aisne Canal over the river at Bourg, and a light railway bridge just east of Vailly. All the bridges – with the exception of Condé – were destroyed or badly damaged by the retiring Germans.

Map1. BEF positions on the Aisne as depicted in the official history of the Great War.

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